“Are you telling me your men can’t handle it? If that’s the case I can give the mission to one of the other teams.”
For just a moment Riley was tempted to let him do just that. It would keep his men out of harm’s way and would be one less thing that he would have to worry about, but when he thought about the men who would be taking Echo’s place, his conscience wouldn’t let him do it. He wouldn’t be solving the problem, he’d just be putting another team at risk.
“My men can handle it just fine, Preceptor. I’m simply looking for more information.”
“You’ve gotten all you are going to get. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have actual concerns that require my attention.”
“But sir!”
Johannson ignored his outburst, leaving Riley the option of trying to push his luck even further when it was clear he had been dismissed or accept what he’d been told and leave it at that. Given that the Preceptor had clearly been behind the effort to have brought before a tribunal less than twenty-four hours ago, Riley’s choices was pretty limited. Pushing his luck would just get him thrown in the brig. Or worse. Better to prepare himself for the mission ahead and hope for the best then continue to argue and end up having to have someone else lead the team.
Without another word, Riley turned on his heel and walked out.
# # #
An hour later, he climbed aboard the Blackhawk helicopter that was waiting on the pad and gave the signal for the pilot to get underway as he settled into his seat. Like the rest of his men, he was dressed in black BDUs worn over a ballistic vest to protect him against the were’s claws as well as any gunfire they might encounter during the takedown if their target offered up some resistance, which he was bound to do. Riley was wearing his communications rig but had his helmet in hand; he’d hated how it made him sweat so he’d only pull that on at the last minute.
Connecting his communications rig to the Blackhawk’s intercom system, he checked in with his men and then, once he was assured that everyone was prepped and ready to go, he settled back to wait out the ride.
As usual they would be flying nap of the earth to avoid showing up on any civilian radar systems, so the two hundred mile flight would take just shy of two hours. That would put them at their drop point by mid-afternoon. The plan was to hike overland until they were in range of the cabin and then attack just after darkness fell. That would be late enough to give them some cover from the forest shadows but not so late that the moonrise would give them any difficulty. Shifters weren’t dependent on the phase of the moon to change shape, Riley knew, but the later phases of the lunar cycle tended to rile them up a bit more and they were only forty-eight hours away from a full moon.
He pulled a topographical map out of his pocket and studied it beneath his penlight for a few moments, looking for anything he might have missed the first few times he had done so. Despite his apprehension, the mission was relatively straightforward. Their drop zone was five clicks from the target site; far enough to prevent an early warning but close enough that they could make the hike without difficulty. Once they arrived at their location, they’d do a quick recon to decide the best way of taking down their man and then they’d do just that. Once he was secured, the chopper would return for a quick evac and that would be that.
Short, simple, and sweet. Just the way he liked such operations. So why was he so jacked up?
He didn’t know and it was the lack of knowing that had him on edge.
Oh, stop acting like an old lady, he told himself, frustrated. You’ve done this a thousand times and your men are all well-trained. They’ll follow your orders, even if it goes to shit. Your worry isn’t helping anything.
And that, in the end, was the reality of the situation. His worry wasn’t helping and it made no sense to waste his energy on what couldn’t be changed anyway.
Leaning back in his seat, he watched the landscape slip past and tried to grab some rest while he still had time to do so.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The chopper touched down in the clearing just long enough for Riley and his eight men to disembark and then, once they were clear of the rotors, it took off again, disappearing back over Dalton’s Ridge in the direction opposite their target to await Riley’s pick up call.
Bautista took point, leading the men into the trees at a brisk pace, while Riley played rear man to the group, making sure no one was following them.
The forest was thick, but the abundance of game trails allowed them to make their way through the trees at a decent rate. They kept conversation to a minimum, using hand signals when necessary to convey a change in pace or direction; they moved through the woods as quickly and as quietly as possible in order to meet the mission deadline.
Despite their rapid pace, the shadows grew long and the sun was all but lost behind the trees by the time they reached their destination, a grassy knoll overlooking Wilson’s homestead to the east. Leaving the men at the base of the hill with orders to hydrate and grab a few minutes of rest, Riley and Bautista made their way up the hill, climbing the last ten feet on their elbows and knees to avoid being seen when they reached the top. From their vantage point, they stared down into the narrow valley that Wilson called home.
There were two structures; a log cabin of decent size directly opposite their position on the far side of the valley floor and a larger building about twenty-five yards to the right of the other. The second structure looked like a barn, but there were no feed animals in sight and Riley couldn’t imagine a single domesticated species that could be around a shifter and not go berserk. A beat-up Ford Bronco that had seen better years was parked at the far end of the valley to their left and with the help of his optics Riley could see the faint edges of a narrow, dirt road leading into the woods.
Only one way in and one way out for a vehicle, Riley thought.
They had only been watching for a few moments when the front door of the cabin opened and a thin, stoop-shouldered man in boots, jeans, and a flannel shirt stepped out onto the narrow porch, cigarette in hand. He stood there for several minutes, taking long drags of his smoke before crushing it under his heel and returning inside.
Riley smiled; they’d found their target.
He sent Bautista to the bottom of the hill to fetch the others while he took his time eyeballing the rest of the area around the homestead for a few more minutes, searching for movement. By the time his men him at the top of the hill, he was ready. Together they slipped silently down the other side and made a beeline for the cabin.
Assignments had been handed out back in the briefing room so there was no need to go over them again. Riley, Markham and Johns would take the front door. Bautista, Christoff, and Kelly would take the rear. Tamarro, Cerce, and Bodine would stay on overwatch, guarding the backs of the rest of the team and making sure that Wilson didn’t slip away in the confusion of the assault.
They hit the target with the precision Riley expected from his team, just as they had a hundred times before. Johns kicked in the door and then stepped back, allowing Riley and Markham to sweep inside, before following in their wake. The trio swept through the structure, clearing each room as they went, until they met Bautista and his team coming the other way through the back door. It didn’t take long, given the cabin consisted of only three rooms; living area, kitchen, and bedroom.
All of them were empty.
Where the hell is Wilson?
Riley was about to ask that very thing when the sound of a generator starting up reached his ears. He stepped over to a window and looked out around one side just as lights bloomed to life; some in the main cabin where they currently stood, some in the barn, and some tacked to trees at various points around the property, pushing back the growing darkness with their stark illumination.
Riley didn’t see anyone outside but it was clear from the sound that the generator was in the barn.
He had no idea how Wilson got past them, but it was obvious that he had. Who else could have started the genera
tor?
Not wanting Wilson to get away a second time, Riley quickly ordered the team to converge on the barn and within moments they were making their second entry, in much the same fashion they had the first.
The entrance to the structure was a large, rectangular door that slid from the left to the right on a metal track. Riley raced across the open ground between the cabin and the barn and set up to the left of the entrance, with Markham and Johns on the right. They paused a moment to catch their breath and let the other teams get into position. When Riley heard two clicks over his radio, signalling that Bautista was in position with his men at the rear of the structure, he nodded at Johns, who grabbed the door and hauled it open.
Riley moved in immediately, with Markham and Johns following closely on his heels. The Echo Team commander went left while the other two men went right, moving through the structure just as they had with the cabin, the muzzles of their weapons tracking in concert with their heads as they looked carefully about.
The first two-thirds of the building was set up like a horse stable, with a wide aisle running down the center and a series of stalls on both the left and the right. There was also a tack room immediately to the right of the entrance, and a tool room immediately to the left which contained the generator. The team checked each location as they swept deeper into the structure, but didn’t find Wilson.
The final third was walled off with cheap lengths of plywood to create a separate room, complete with a door of its own. That door was slightly ajar, a padlock lying discarded on the floor a few feet away.
Riley’s senses were on overdrive as he went through the doorway, Markham at his back, the two of them splitting in different directions as they entered, gazes flashing about in search of their quarry.
What they saw brought them up short.
At first glance the room looked like an apartment, with a bed, toilet, and sink on one side and a small couch and older-model television set on the other.
A young woman sat on the bed. She couldn’t have been older than late teens or early twenties, was Riley’s guess. Her skin was gaunt from lack of food and sunlight and her long hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in a week or more. She wore a clean nightgown, however, which showed where her captor’s priorities were.
The girl cowered at the sight of them, drawing her legs up against her body and pulling herself as far back as she could get on the bed, exposing the manacle around her ankle that kept her chained in place.
This wasn’t an apartment, it was a cell.
But Riley couldn’t focus on that or the prisoner quite yet. There was still the issue of Wilson.
Where the hell has he gone?
Riley keyed his throat mike. “Tell me you’ve got him, Bautista.”
“That’s a negative. There’s no back door or windows on this place. He didn’t come this way.”
Shit!
Riley glanced up, checking the rafters, but they were as empty as the stalls outside. He glanced again at the girl, wondering if she had seen anything. The door had been unlocked, after all…
As if reading his mind, the captive’s eyes suddenly went wide and she began pointing in earnest at the couch while saying something in rapid-fire Spanish.
Riley didn’t understand a word of it.
He keyed his mike again. “I need you on the double, Bautista.”
“Coming.”
Seconds later Bautista was kneeling beside the bed, speaking softly to the girl. They went back and forth for a few moments, before the sergeant turned to Riley.
“She’s scared half out of her mind, Captain, so I’m not sure she really understands what I’m asking. She keeps saying Wilson went through the sofa.”
Went through the sofa?
Riley turned to stare at the furniture in question, rolling the phrase around in his mind, trying to understand what she meant, then hurried over to take a look. The couch was secured to the floor with thick bolts and wouldn’t move when he pushed or pulled on it.
Behind him, the girl rattled off something new to Bautista.
“The cushions,” he translated, while she pointed in emphasis.
Grabbing the closest one, Riley tried to lift it up, only to find that he could not. Kneeling down, he took a closer look, discovering the cushions were secured to a piece of plywood running the length of the couch. He found a finger-sized hole in the wood near the center of the couch and inside that, a small latch. Pressing on the latch caused the wood, cushions and all, to spring open, revealing an opening beneath.
Through the couch, indeed!
Since he wasn’t immediately shot when the panel swung open, Riley figured it was safe enough to take a look. He drew his maglight from his belt and shined it into the opening, revealing a ladder leading to the floor of a tunnel directly below.
Stripping off his helmet, Riley held it by the chin strap and lowered it into the opening in front of him. When it wasn’t shot immediately out of his grasp, he figured Wilson hadn’t waited around for them to follow. He pulled his helmet back up, slipped it back on his head, and descended the ladder as expeditiously as possible.
The tunnel below was narrow and tight; Riley disliked it immediately. He shined his light around, noting that the tunnel not only ran back toward the cabin, but extended past the ladder itself in the opposite direction, away from the compound into the woods.
Escape route, he thought.
Before he could investigate any further, the sound of gunfire reached his ears from above. Riley turned and rushed back up the ladder.
CHAPTER TWENTY
He emerged to find Johns hunched over the prisoner, working to pick the lock on the manacles that secured her to the bed. The others were nowhere in sight, but the sound of gunfire from the front of the barn let him know just where they’d gone.
Riley caught Johns’ attention and then pointed behind him at the trapdoor. “Shoot anything that comes out of there,” he said, and then ran to join his men in the next room.
He emerged from the back to a cacophony of gunfire. The short, sharp staccato sound of his men’s weaponry was being answered by heavier caliber shots from outside somewhere. As he stepped into the main section of the barn he was just in time to see Tamarro stumble through the door at the front of the structure, an injured Bodine slung over one shoulder. Cerce was a few steps behind him, facing back in the direction they’d come from, firing at something outside. Bautista stood on the opposite side of the entryway, adding covering fire to Cerce’s own, the sound of their submachine guns echoing through the barn’s interior. Markham had the door in motion the moment Cerce crossed the threshold, sliding it along the runner until it was most of the way shut, leaving only a narrow gap between the edge of the door and the far side of the entryway. Bullets continued to slam into the thick wood of the door even as Tamarro carried Bodine into one of the nearby stalls and lowered him to the ground with Cerce’s help.
Riley followed them in. “What happened?” he asked, even as he helped Cerce hold the injured man steady so Tamarro could cut away the cloth surrounding the bullet wound in Bodine’s leg.
“Two trucks came out of nowhere,” Tamarro replied. “Guys with guns poured out and started firing right at us, like they knew exactly where we were. We had no choice but to beat a retreat.”
Tamarro began packing the wound in Bodine’s leg with clotting agent and bandages, so Riley slapped him on the back in silent support and left the duo to help their comrade. Back in the main room, he found Bautista cautiously peering out the narrow slot left between the door and the jamb.
“Talk to me,” he said softly as he slid up next to him.
“Two, maybe three trucks,” Bautista replied. “They’re parked facing us. I can hear men moving around out there but I can’t tell how many or exactly where they are thanks to the glare. Cerce said they’re armed with rifles and assorted handguns, though, so we’re not just walking out of here.”
Riley cursed under his breath.
Bautista nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”
Any further conversation was cut short when those outside began hailing them with a megaphone.
“You there! In the barn!”
Bautista glanced at Riley. “You think he’s talking to us?” he asked, a wry smile on his face.
Riley chuckled. Leave it to Bautista to find humor in a situation like this.
The voice outside went on without waiting for an answer. “I don’t know which one of you is stupider – your commander for sending you out here to arrest me or you for following his orders. Either way, you’re trespassin’ on my property and I don’t like that.”
Gotta be Wilson, Riley thought.
“Out here in these woods my word is law. Far as I’m concerned, you’ve broken that law and wouldn’t ya know it, in this jurisdiction trespassin’s a killin’ offense. So you’ve got ten seconds to drop your weapons and come out on your knees beggin’ for my mercy or I’m gonna drop that there barn right down on top of your heads.”
Riley nearly laughed aloud at the man’s audacity. The last thing he planned on doing was turning himself or any of his men over to a killer like Wilson. Still, the man had a point; they were in a bit of a precarious position and they’d best find a way out.
And quickly.
The obvious answer was to use the tunnel, but Riley wasn’t too keen on that idea. If it was obvious to him it would certainly be obvious to Wilson, especially since the other man had just used it to get away. There was no way of knowing where it led or what might be waiting for them at the other end.
Outside, Wilson began counting down.
“Nine…”
“Eight…”
So, the tunnel was out. That meant they could either use the front door – directly engaging Wilson and his men in the process – or create an exit of their own somewhere else.
Riley glanced at the men milling around outside, thought about the rifles they were supposedly carrying, and decided he much preferred option number two.
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